


Goodbye, Káno

by doodlebutt



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: (it's canonical - you guys know what this is about), (kinda - I'm covering all bases here), (the aftermath anyway), Angst, Canonical Character Death, Cry with me, Everybody Dies, FEEL SORRY FOR MAGLOR, Flashbacks, Gen, Hallucinations, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, Silmarils, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, War of Wrath, basically you should all feel sorry for maglor, except for the one who you want to die, he doesn't die, this is exactly what you think it is tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2016-03-09
Packaged: 2018-05-25 19:14:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6207145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doodlebutt/pseuds/doodlebutt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of the most angsty things I have ever written. Short, painful, made me say "fuck you" to myself at the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Goodbye, Káno

_“Goodbye, Káno.”_

 

The silent words ring in his mind, slicing through the roar of the shattered, breaking land as he sees them form on his brother's lips. Flames leap up, dazzling red (yet not so bright as to obscure that light they hold at last; nor could any pain of fire compare to this), and in a heartbeat he is gone.

The scream tears from his throat like a wild thing, and as the ashy ground rises swiftly to meet him he thinks for a fleeting moment of Ambarussa - and understands, at last.

Shadows rise about him, dark and bright in turn, and he hears the voices of those long gone as something within him tears slowly into pieces.

 

_“Káno, sing for us!” Laughter; two fair young voices full of the light of their world long lost._

_“Here, I made this to carry that awful harp of yours.” Dark grey eyes which hide smiles; young and yet not young._

_“Don't listen to them. You know practice makes better.” Rougher, yet always knowing exactly what to say, a warm hand on his shoulder._

_“You'd play better if you came out on our hunts, brother; they would inspire you.” A wild smile and wilder eyes, joy contained just barely._

_“Come along, Káno, they're waiting for you.” Wordless support against his nerves; his first time before the crowds of Tirion..._

 

He gasps, eyes stinging with ash and tears, trying to anchor himself to reality.

 

_One. Salt and ash and mirrored, identical screams._

 

_Two, three, four. Stone halls, red floors, anger and blood and bitter frustration._

 

_Five. Black pain and guilt even as the sundered half finds peace, and two young faces trembling with tenuous courage._

 

Reality hits him like a blow, forcing air from his lungs in a hoarse cry which whips away into the relentless wind.

 

_Six._

 

The last fragments of illusion fall away as the pain returns in full force. Somewhere he can hear the rush of the Sea, somewhere else the cry of a solitary gull - somewhere beyond hearing there is a voice telling him goodbye once again.

It _burns_.

He knows he must move. He must depart, must go on to some fate he knows not, must do anything but this. Yet he is held in place, unable to stir as the dazzling pain eats away at hand and fëa alike and the hot, ashy rocks press up against his face and limbs.

He closes his eyes against the light. It does nothing; still it burns, he can never, will never be free of it -

_Goodbye, Káno._

From somewhere beyond himself he finds the will to stand. The Sea now is closer than he recalls, and barely a few stumbling steps serve to carry him to the edge of a crumbling, fraying cliff.

 

He wonders if it could end this way.

 

He decides that it cannot.

 

The Silmaril draws an arc of white fire across the red sky. Maglor is sure he can hear the splash as it hits the water, even over the roar of destruction that surrounds him. How could he not, with every sense and every part of him bound to it like this?

He watches the waves as the final glimmer of silver-gold disappears for ever.

 

It takes several long minutes for him to recognise the empty, hollow space inside his fëa. Tangled all around the rending holes his brothers have left, entwined with the bitter space their father should hold - something vital has been broken and dissolved.

Or _fulfilled_.

 

All the air shoots out of his lungs as he falls to his knees, swaying on the edge of the cliff above the churning waves. His mind spins, disbelieving, as he tastes freedom again in the bitterest way it could have come to him.

It is over. Everything is over. And yet, horrifyingly, he is not.

The assault on his senses as he steps back from the cliff is brutal and vivid. Painfully he realises how trapped they had become - he feels as a leaf in the wind, a frayed end of rope cut loose in a storm, unbound, terrifyingly free -

It is over, and he is not.

 

_Seven._ It is a wish, and only that. He looks down at his hand where the harsh air stings it, and hisses in pain as his own tears fall to find the raw, burned flesh.

 

_Seven._ Not yet, not yet. He knows now that there must be something else, though he feels pathless and bereft at the end of the world - there must be a reason for his bitter survival.

 

_The deeds that we shall do…_

No, he thinks, not this. No.

_...shall be the matter of song..._

He does not - but he does, he does deserve this, and far worse besides.

_...until the last days of Arda._

  
_Seven_ , he realises, may never come.


End file.
